It seems like it was only yesterday that politicians, coal executives and even some environmentalists had agreed on the benefits of clean coal technology. Among other duties, it takes the polluting carbon dioxide byproducts of coal-fired power stations and sequesters it deep underground, where its greenhouse gases cannot enter the atmosphere. (For a good overview, try this BBC guide) In spite of the environmental costs of coal extraction, coal’s abundance and low prices make clean coal technology one of the few big-scale approaches to mitigating climate change accepted by advocates from all sides. While a world run on purely renewable energy such as solar or wind is ideal, practicality calls for a diverse energy portfolio.
As the New York Times reports, however, escalating project costs and the slow pace of finding safe, affordable sequestration methods are becoming roadblocks to finding a reasonable solution within the next few decades—which is when they will be necessary. Scientists still need time to test the abilities of various types of rock and soil formations to capture and to retain carbon dioxide, among other variables. The article states that, without ample time to perfect the technology—or at least to make it safe and emissions-reducing, coal companies will just continue building coal plants using current, dirty technology. What’s the point of clean coal if it’s not clean at all?
Unfortunately, as with climate change prediction models and photovoltaic panels, any sort of technology requires time to research and to test and, overarching that, long-term vision.
Last week, the United States Green Building Council (USGBC–the folks behind LEED certification) sent representatives, including their Senior Vice-President, Michelle Moore, to explain to the Congressional Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming that green building is integral to our country’s future strategy for addressing climate change, and to energy independence.
What the USGBC would like to be made more common knowledge is that more than a third of GHG emissions in this country is attributable to buildings. The government is aware of the need to start encouraging stricter green building measures, industry-wide; for instance, the DOE’s “Builder’s Challenge” is trying to get 220,000 energy-efficient homes built by 2012. But largely, initiatives have been confined to the state level. Getting the federal government to endorse LEED standards for new construction would be a coup, not just for the USGBC but for building owners–greater energy efficiency translates into savings and higher resale value. Not to mention the health benefits to residents (better air and light) and to the environment (lower emissions, lower impact building methods, recycled or sustainable materials).
The fact that the USGBC has officially testified in front of Congress to the importance of green building may get the attention of legislators who have been pushing the issue to the side in favor of “sexier” topics to do with climate change and energy, like the endangered status of polar bears or (our personal favorite, here at GetSolar.com) funding renewable energy R&D. I think our government, very soon, will have to understand that these are not individual topics from which it can pick and choose; a strategy for reducing our dependence on fossil fuels, decreasing our carbon emissions, planning for the growth of the “green” economy, and devising cost-effective means of using renewable energy must be holistic. Outside of the USGBC’s rather vested interest in seeing the LEED standard taken up by the federal government, it’s undeniable that green building is going to play a large role in whatever plan takes shape.
So, as a follow-up to a subject I spoke about in February – “A True Solar Dilemma” – another case has come up in Canada that touches upon most of the same issues. A family installed solar for their roof, and then new construction on an adjacent lot interfered with the available sunlight, rendering their new investment essentially useless.
30+ states in the U.S.A. have some kind of solar easement legislation that seeks to protect solar homeowners from a situation like this, but this case is a great reminder of the fact that there are still vast portions of this country and entire other countries where legislation isn’t regulating what could become an increasingly prevalent problem.
Moreover, there are disputes that arise even in states that have legislation about its proper interpretation. And as solar starts to take off in America, cities and states are going to start having to make some tough choices about how many restrictions they are willing to put in place.
Moving forward, it’s clear that there are going to have to be some discussions among the ranks of city planners to make sure that this doesn’t create a high-profile, wholly unnecessary stumbling block along the path to solar’s public acceptance and proliferation. Let’s iron out the kinks now, before too many more homeowners have to face this problem.
OK, kids. Time to scribble down a list of all those books you’ve been meaning to read, grab a towel and head for the beach. Who needs U.S. Weekly, trashy romance novels or (God forbid) fiction, when you’ve got a slew of great titles on coal, corporate social responsibility, climate change and investing in the cleantech sector? I sure don’t!
I’ve come up with five titles, here. I’ll look to you, our readers, to come up with at least five more to make a solid summer list of ten.
I’m about halfway through this book, which is proving to be a great, up-to-date survey of post-Kyoto outlooks from some of the subject’s leading thinkers. In addition to their other endeavors, Aldy and Stavins are both involved with Resources for the Future, an independent policy think tank based in Washington, DC.
If you want to improve your understanding of the international cooperation problem presented by climate change, this is your book. Its contributing authors provide critical assessments of the Kyoto Protocol while putting forth policy recommendations that either improve on the current approach or suggest alternatives means of cutting greenhouse gas emissions. To boot, its introduction is written by Lawrence Summers, whom can always be relied upon for insightful/interesting guidance…
I can’t speak to this 2006 title from personal experience, but it does come strongly recommended from a good friend of mine. Apparently he’s not alone:
“Environment and sustainability issues have become an important focus in business generally and in the financial world in particular. Green to Gold is rich with both big-picture thinking and practical ”how-to” suggestions that will help bankers, analysts, fund managers, and investors stay on top of the ”green wave.””—Larry Linden, Advisory Director, Goldman Sachs
“Green to Gold is a must read for anyone interested in investing in the vast emerging environmental markets.”—Mark McGough, President and CEO, Pentadyne Power Corporation
“Green to Gold provides the definitive thinking on how business leaders can address environmental issues in the new economy, a world where companies win by integrating company strategies with social challenges, rather than treating economic and social as separate and different.”—Michael E. Porter, Professor, Harvard Business School
OK, to be fair, this book actually came out in 2007, and I read it last summer. But it remains a great introduction to the world of clean tech investing. Co-written by Ron Pernick and Clint Wilder, both of Clean Edge, a cleantech consulting firm, the book provides useful info on market fundamentals and eight main areas of the cleantech sector: solar energy, wind power, biofuels and biomaterials, green buildings, personal transportation, smart electricity grids, mobile technologies and water filtration. If you want to get a taste of what to expect, you can download PDFs of the book’s Introduction and the entire chapter on solar energy, which in my opinion is really cool.
First there was that book on cod. Then there was another one about salt. Both books, along with others, followed in the footsteps of Sydney Mintz’s seminal book, Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History. It goes without saying that our lives, and our livelihood, are intrinsically bound to such commodities. Coal—which powered our first wave of industrialization, arguably improving the lives of million—threatens to undue us if its use isn’t moderated or, at least, altered. While I’ve yet to crack the cover, Freese’s 2004 book promises to be a compelling biography of king coal.
So this is one of those books that’s been on my “to read” list for a couple of years. But this time around, it will happen. I will read it this summer. I will. I will not fall asleep on my beach towel after eating three hotdogs, a burger and half a bag of potato chips… Here’s Amazon’s review:
Paper or plastic? Neither, say William McDonough and Michael Braungart. Why settle for the least harmful alternative when we could have something that is better–say, edible grocery bags! In Cradle to Cradle, the authors present a manifesto calling for a new industrial revolution, one that would render both traditional manufacturing and traditional environmentalism obsolete. Recycling, for instance, is actually “downcycling,” creating hybrids of biological and technical “nutrients” which are then unrecoverable and unusable. The authors, an architect and a chemist, want to eliminate the concept of waste altogether, while preserving commerce and allowing for human nature. They offer several compelling examples of corporations that are not just doing less harm–they’re actually doing some good for the environment and their neighborhoods, and making more money in the process. Cradle to Cradle is a refreshing change from the intractable environmental conflicts that dominate headlines. It’s a handbook for 21st-century innovation and should be required reading for business hotshots and environmental activists. –Therese Littleto
Happy reading! And don’t forget to post your suggestions!
I didn’t really know what to write about this week. I’m in London, and there’s so much in the way of sustainability initiatives (for instance, Islington, the borough in which I’m staying, powers its own fleet of electric vehicles with wind turbines) and renewable energy news that I’ve been unable to choose.
So I’m not going to. This bit of news from the Guardian caught my eye and interest:
An Alpine-style cable car to ferry people across the Thames in east London should replace plans for a £500m six-lane road bridge…a cable car across the Thames would be the most sustainable. It would be significantly cheaper than a bridge, and would greatly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, encourage cycling and walking, and could be erected in time for the Olympics in 2012.
Environmental groups as well as local residents have been opposing the plans for a bridge for some time. The idea for a cable car was put forth by analysts hired by Transport for London. Cars would leave every 20 seconds or so, take less than two minutes to cross, and be capable of transporting up to 5,000 people every hour. It would also connect into London’s admirable public transit system, as well as to the currently under-served City Airport.
The analysts think the cable car is the best option for many reasons: low emissions, potential as a tourist attraction (East London could use some TLC in that department), good press, low cost of installation and maintenance, and low noise pollution.
In the US, a cable car has connected New York’s Roosevelt Island with Manhattan since the late 1970s; it wasn’t supposed to be permanent, but was so efficient and attracted so many tourists that it settled in. And it is beautiful–it helps me see why a cable car appeals to East London locals a bridge alternative. This video takes you along the path of the Tramway (plus you get to listen to some U2):
Global warming will reduce the frequency of hurricanes in the Atlantic by the end of the century, reports a new study released yesterday online in the journal Nature Geoscience. A number of scientists have attributed recent increases in Atlantic hurricanes to the warmer waters resulting from climate change, yet research meteorologist Tom Knutson, one of the paper’s leading authors, says his model shows otherwise. The study is attracting so much attention because Knutson, a prominent meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s geophysics fluid dynamics lab, has warned of the effects of anthropogenic climate change in the past.
The full text of the study is available only to Nature subscribers, but luckily news organizations such as the Associated Press (link via Yahoo) and the BBC have already reported some of the most significant figures for us. By the end of the century, Knutson et al. predict that the number of hurricanes in the Atlantic will fall by 18 percent, although the biggest storms—those with wind speeds over 110 mph—would decline in frequency by only eight percent. At the same time, the study posits that the intensity of hurricanes and tropical storms would increase dramatically as well: wind strength would rise by two percent, and rainfall within 30 miles of a hurricane would increase by 37 percent.
The study and its accompanying model, of course, have already both come under fire from critics as well as received many supporters. Knutson says he does not believe that the debate surrounding the effects of man-made climate change on hurricane activity will die out anytime soon—a reasonable assertion, as research procedures have changed much over the years and modeling hurricanes is costly. And herein lies the difficulty of reporting climate science—a topic Andrew Revkin, author of the fantastic New York Times blog Dot Earth, has covered quite extensively and quite well.
Knutson has not, contrary to the claims of the media (mainly the AP, in the article cited above), reversed his opinions on the effects of climate change. According to this talk on NPR in January, he said that there was not enough data to support whether or not global warming would increase hurricane frequency. He has, however, stated that there would be an increase in hurricane intensity, which aligns with the results of his study.
I think that the problem now isn’t whether or not global warming causes more hurricanes to occur. Only time and increased research will answer that question. What the majority of scientists have established, however, is that we are all vulnerable to the effects of climate change to a certain extent, some significantly more so than others. Let’s not ignore the forest for the trees (correct me if I’ve botched the saying!) and look at the bigger questions of how to live a little more sustainably and to allocate limited resources in a growing world.
Government support for solar is seeing one of its standouts slide backwards, as Germany is cutting back on solar subsidies. This is obviously extremely disappointing, and while this isn’t entirely new news, the human end economic cost of the goverment’s change in policy is becoming much more apparent. Solar installers are having to deal with cuts from 50-98% (98%!) on their orders as a result of the change in the pricing structure.
That being said, Germany did have an extremely generous policy, and there was great concern that Germany’s program was having such success in adoption that funding the program might actually destabalize the country’s finances. Certainly, solar isn’t worth plunging a country into an economic quagmire.
But if the problem was an overly generous policy, and now cutting back on it is having a vicious backlash, then maybe the lesson here isn’t that subsidizing solar is a bad idea. Far more likely, it shows that governments should not underestimate the potential demand for solar, if they provide assistance in making it viable. There are a huge amount of individuals and corporations out there that understand the benefits of going solar that go well beyond economic efficiencies, and when subsidies make the adoption even more attractive a whole host of interested parties are going to go in for the new technology.
Governments looking to Germany shouldn’t see potential disaster, but rather understand that more modest, financially prudest subsidies can be introduced, without the need to radically re-adjust them and clip the wings of an emerging market later on in the process.
I’ve been in London for about a week now, and it’s funny how readily I can see the differences in the United Kingdom’s approach to climate change and environmentalism. It’s in the every day details, most of which I see evidence of every day while I’m wandering about:
Construction sites with placards noting that the contractor is socially and environmentally conscious;
Dig sites all around London for the city’s gargantuan effort to replace Victorian water mains: they’re predicting “typical saving[s] to be about one million litres per day for each of the [work] zones” (Thames Water);
The city’s efforts to publicize smog levels on a daily basis (and yes, they do that in LA, too);
The way everyone walks, bikes, or takes public transit. There are plenty of taxis but very few private cars, far fewer than you see in Manhattan;
The fact that of the private vehicles on the road, so many of them are itsy bitsy Smart Cars or motorbikes–after all, they’ve been paying as much for gasoline in this country for the past several years as we just started paying in the States;
Ads for the hydrogen-cell public buses coming to the city, 10 of them by 2010. It’s a miniscule fraction of the buses in use, but it’s an important symbol;
The mayor’s fabulous multi-pronged approach to tackling climate change, which includes green building advice (and homes that have gone green get a cute little sticker to put in their window to show their neighbors), a “green concierge”, and an initiative to curtail short-haul business flights
London isn’t perfect. It’s still a metropolitan area with more than 7.5 million inhabitants. The London fog for which it was so famous for so long? The effluvia of the industrial era’s new factories, trapped by wind patterns into hovering over the city instead of moving out to sea. That’s one reason air quality can be so hazardous to people’s health that the city, on some days, puts out an advisory to avoid outdoor exercise. But it’s nice to be in a city where people take it for granted that you should walk instead of drive to the store half a mile away, and where the local mini-markets offer local and organic foods as a matter of course (Tesco’s, the supermarket giant of the UK, has just started putting the carbon footprint of their products on the label). Brittania might not rule any longer, but that’s not stopping London from being an urban trendsetter in the fight against climate change.
In spite of the popularity of going green, we live in a country driven by car culture. We love our cars, our industries and our independence. Even if they were manufactured and assembled elsewhere, we adore our heavy-duty SUVs, our sleek sedans and our cute Hybrids—but above all, we love the freedom that a personal vehicle allows us. However, with oil prices recently having risen past $120 a barrel and gridlock so bad that a one-mile trip in the city can take over an hour, a sudden influx Americans have traded in their car keys for a public transportation pass.
For places like Boston or New York City, this increase is expected, since their public transportation infrastructures are already well established and traffic tends to be so horrific that taking the bus or the subway is a natural recourse. However, what’s surprising is that cities like Houston, Denver and Nashville—strongholds of car culture—are experiencing similar jumps in mass transit commuters.
An article from last week’s New York Times reports that ridership in places like Boston and New York has increased by five to ten percent so far this year. In many metropolitan areas in the South and to the west, however, ridership rose by ten to 15 percent throughout the course of 2007. Where empty seats on the bus were prevalent, there is now only standing room. The same article even notes that the parking lots at many bus and rail stations in towns around the country overflow to the point where desperate commuters have parked on grass or in vacant lots, running the risk of being either ticketed or towed. The Energy Department has predicted that Americans would consume less oil this year than they did in 2007—“the first yearly decline since 1991.”
Now, I confess that I have never particularly enjoyed taking public transportation. My lazy legs protest at the prospect of standing in a shaky train for over even 15 minutes, mashed against countless strangers in a diesel-scented chamber shaped like an elongated Sardine can. I dislike waiting in long lines, only to be turned away once it is my turn and then forced to wait for the next bus, which will inevitably arrive ten minutes behind schedule. I love the convenience of driving from point A to point B, without the hassle of waiting (except in traffic). But public transportation systems are improving—the subway system in Boston has certainly become cleaner and more efficient (thank goodness for the introduction of Charlie cards and the abolition of those horrid tokens), and the metro in Washington D.C. is even cleaner and more efficient than the one in Boston—and the advent of the Blackberry, PDA and wireless internet allow us to work effectively, if not peacefully, on the rail or on the bus. Add to this potent combination the problems posed by high gas prices and urban gridlock, and the attractiveness of getting a public transportation pass rises exponentially. Plus, it helps to reduce the amount of carbon emissions we emit, so what’s there not to celebrate?
Clearly, I’m not the only recent convert to public transportation. All that’s left is to do something about those darn lines.
I just returned from San Diego last night after a very interesting week listening to many of the pioneers of solar electric power at the ASES Solar 2008 Conference. Brad Collins, Executive Director of the American Solar Energy Society (ASES) gave a very interesting talk about what he learned at the first World Future Energy Summit (WFES) held in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Mr. Collins spoke of a project called MASDAR (which in Arabic means the source). MASDAR is a new project comprising a company, a university, a venture fund, and a research and technology park all wrapped up in a new city. All zero carbon, zero waste and utilizing a national carbon capture and storage network.
MASDAR is designed to be a research hub, a focal point, a “one-stop shopping” center for clean tech, renewable energy, and green building. It is certainly a bold and visionary action with four main objectives. One, it is designed to diversify the petroleum-based economy of the UAE. Two, it is designed to keep Abu Dhabi a strong relevant player in the changing global energy markets. Three, it establishes a research and technology base that will attract further talent and capital. Fourth, it addresses the pressing issues of global energy and climate. The government plans on building the city in two years.
MASDAR is owned by the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company, which is wholly owned by the government. It is a $15 billion initiative, which in a nation of 350,000 residents, represents $43,000 per resident. At the center of the 6 km² carbon neutral city will be the MASDAR Institute, a nonprofit independent research university built with the help from the Massachusetts Institute of technology (MIT) of the United States. The institute is set up to be a regional and international center for research and technology in clean energy. There will be a clean tech investment fund and various initiatives to jumpstart new companies.
After listening to Mr. Collins’ presentation I was struck by one question. The United States has plenty of desert, it has plenty of capital, and it has plenty of world-class research universities; so why not build a carbon neutral research city in the United States to establish a world technology leadership model?
